Author Archives: Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

About Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

Writer (as Amanda McCabe, Laurel McKee, Amanda Carmack), history geek, yoga enthusiast, pet owner!

REGENCY AUTHOR UPDATES

Updated on March 12, 2013 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

Risky Regencies is your trusty Regency Emporium, serving all your Regency needs. Our readers asked for author updates, and so what do we have for you today? Author Updates!

So grab a cup of tea, pull up a cozy chair, and find out what Regency authors are up to…

VICTORIA HINSHAW tells us she’s been recharging her batteries — thinking, playing with lots of different ideas for plots and characters, and catching up on all the reading she missed while writing three books a year for Zebra. She has a Regency historical in the works, and has also been working on a fictional biography of Princess Charlotte. (I’ve noticed a couple other Regency writers have been going the nonfiction route in one form or another — hmm…is this a trend? Or just three individual writers making individual choices?)

What Victoria Hinshaw was too modest to mention (but we know anyway — ha!) is that her 2005 books have been doing extremely well with the recent contests. ASK JANE (Zebra Regency, April 2005) finalled in several prestigious contests, and won the Golden Quill Award for Best Regency. (That’s the contest our own Elena won in the historical category — so we know it’s a good contest.) 🙂 And with her August release LEAST LIKELY LOVERS, Vicky is competing against Diane and Cara for the Booksellers’ Best Award. (And we still like her! How’s that for professionalism?)

JENNA MINDEL reports, “Here’s what I’m up to now…I’ve been working on a contemporary Inspirational romance set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.” She’s also a RITA finalist for her Regency Miss Whitlow’s Turn!

DOROTHY McFALLS “feels blessed to have landed firmly at Venus Press.” She’s obviously been very busy, with FOUR titles out this year, all different subgenres! Lady Sophia’s Midnight Seduction, a short erotic Regency; Neptune’s Lair and its sequel Marked, which are paranormal erotic suspense; and The Huntress, contemporary mainstream. Wow! Plus her Signet Regency, The Marriage List, is a finalist in the National Readers’ Choice Award. For details on all these projects, visit http://www.dorothymcfalls.com

JO ANN FERGUSON is still writing Regencies. She just turned one in to her editor at Signet where she’s writing as Jocelyn Kelley. She’s been writing the medieval series “The Ladies of St. Jude’s Abbey” as Jocelyn Kelley for the past two years. A Moonlit Knight came out in May and My Lady Knight is scheduled for January 2007. Then she returns to Regencies when the Regency-historical trilogy “The Nethercott Tales” are published by Signet Eclipse. For those of you who enjoyed the Priscilla Flanders mystery series from Zebra Regency, look for these books about the three Nethercott sisters that have suspense elements along with ghostly paranormal. The first book in the series (with a working title of The Mistress School) is scheduled for July 2007 to be followed by Gentleman’s Master. She’s also still writing for ImaJinn as J.A. Ferguson. In 2006, she’s got Luck of the Irish (a leprechaun story), Sworn Upon Fire (an alternate world futuristic), and The Wrong Christmas Carol (an angel Christmas story) coming out.

ANDREA PICKENS/ANDREA DaRIF has been busy with a new series for Warner Forever, the “Hellion Heroes.” The first book, The Spy Wore Silk, is out in March 2007. This is what she says about it: “At first blush, Mrs. Merlin’s Academy for Select Young ladies is the very pattern card of a proper boarding school. But looks can be deceiving, along with music, art, dancing, and the social graces, the students–all streetwise orphans chosen for their toughness and intelligence–are being molded into an elit fighting force. England’s secret weapon. When a critical government document is stolen from Whitehall, the student known only as Siena is given the assignment to keep it from falling into enemies’ hands…”

So, what have your other favorite Regency authors been up to? Check here every Sunday to find out! And if there’s a certain author you’d love to have an update on, let us know!

The Riskies

Posted in Reading, Regency | Tagged Andra DaRif, Andrea Pickens, Dorothy McFalls, Jenna Minel, JoAnn Ferguson, Victoria Hinshaw | 3 Replies

What Amanda Is Doing Now

Updated on March 12, 2013 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

If I told RR every project I have in the works, it would take a triple-length post, I think! I have a confession to make–my name is Amanda, and I am a researchaholic. I’m addicted to libraries, to the papery smell, the quiet, the cool air, everything. Give me a desk tucked behind some stacks and a pile of history books, and you won’t see me for weeks. It was a favorite method of my parents when I was a kid. I’m also very easily distracted by stray factoids I come across in researching, so lack of ideas is never my problem. The problem is stopping with the research and starting on, you know, writing a book.

So, I’ll just let you know about my Top Two (okay, Top Three) projects of the moment, ones that are actually sitting on various editors’ desks and not just a gleam in my eye and a bunch of research titles on my Barnes and Noble receipts.

1) Historical fiction number one, working title Tincture of Secrets. This one is set in Florence and Venice in the 1470s. Our heroine, Isabella, wants to be an artist. And, lucky for her, her cousin happens to be Botticelli’s favorite model–but she also happens to get Isabella mixed up with the Medici, right at the height of the bloody Pazzi Conspiracy. Art, murder, revenge, gondolas–what else does a story need???

2) Historical fiction number two, working title Fortune’s Fools (thanks, Cara!). No gondolas here–it’s set in Elizabethan England, early 1580s. Penelope was a Maid of Honor to the Queen, until her naughtiness got her exiled to rebellious Lancashire. There she meets a young Shakespeare, a Catholic conspiracy, a new love–and gets set on a path to the Tower.

3) And, since this is Risky REGENCIES, a Regency historical called The Alabaster Goddess, Book One of the Muses of Mayfair. An aristocratic thief, archaelogical high jinks, a mysterious artifact (the titular goddess), and a hero and heroine on a collision course with fate–and each other. No gondolas here, either, but then you never know what might happen in Book Two… 🙂

And that’s what Amanda is doing on her summer vacation!

Posted in Risky Book Talk | Tagged Amanda McCabe | 5 Replies

Happy Father’s Day

Updated on March 12, 2013 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

So, tomorrow is Father’s Day, and I still haven’t found a gift for my dad. He is the hardest person in the world to shop for–he already owns every electronic gizmo there is, plus every DVD and CD he might want he’s already bought for himself. I wonder if people in the Regency had this problem? Oh, yeah–they didn’t HAVE Father’s Day then. Lucky them. 🙂

Besides scanning the Internet for possible gifts, I’ve been trying to decide on a good theme for this post. In college, I once wrote a paper on fathers and daughters in Shakespeare. To borrow from that idea, here is a selection of fathers from Jane Austen:

From Mansfield Park, there is the uncle/father figure Sir Thomas Bertram. Now, he benevolently takes Fanny in and raises her alongside his own offspring, but Sir Thomas is really pretty distant in her life, a fearsome figure of authority. He is not outwardly affectionate, and is definitely highly concerned with outward appearances, but in the end he does acknowledge that he should have really spent more time overseeing his children and not left them to his lax wife and crazy Mrs. Norris.

From Pride and Prejudice, of course there is Mr. Bennet. He spends most of his time reading and hiding out in his study, which really who can blame him, but he also comes across as a bit careless to his family’s ultimate fate. With Elizabeth he is concerned and loving, but with his three younger daughters he lumps them together as the “silliest girls in England” (and again, who can totally argue with him?)

From Sense and Sensibility, I guess you can say there is Mr. Dahswood, who dies at the beginning. Yet it appears he loves his wife and daughters and wants to provide for them, hence he makes his son promise to take care of them. That the son breaks that promise isn’t really his fault, I guess…

From Emma, there is Mr. Woodhouse, the invalid. It’s said “she loved her father, but he was no companion to her.” He sees no fault in his daughter, and they spend a comfortable life together indulging each other in their whims and self-delusions.

From Northanger Abbey, we see Mr. Morland, a respectable, well-enough-off clergyman, with “considerable independence, besides two good livings.” But he is not much of a presence, probably because he has two livings and ten children. His wife appears equally distracted, leaving Catherine lots of time to do stuff like roll down hills and read horrid novels.

There is also General Tilney. He is very wealth-obsessed, boasting, annoying, and preoccupied with himself (when not meddling in his children’s lives). I sometimes wonder how Catherine is going to handle having him for an in-law…

And, from Persuasion, Sir Walter Elliott. He spends all his time reading the peerage and probably looking in the mirror. He loves his daughter Elizabeth, who is like a reflection of him in female form, but is quite indifferent to Anne and probably to Mary. “Vanity was the beginning and end of his character.”

And that is my thumbnail sketch of fathers to be found in Austen. They’re kind of a pitiful lot when looked at like that, aren’t they? 🙂 I thought of many other things that could go into this post–fathers in romance novels, fathers in the real-life Regency (btw, the picture is George III, Queen Charlotte, and their Six Eldest Children by Johann Zoffany. Thanks for the tips on uploading pics to Blogger!). But I really do need to get to the shops and find a gift for my own dad, who luckily is no Mr. Elliott or General Tilney. What are some of your favorite examples of fathers in books or histories? Or comments on Austen fathers, either fictional or Rev. Austen himself?

Happy Father’s Day!

Posted in Jane Austen, Reading, Writing | Tagged Father's Day, fathers | 8 Replies

Booksellers’ Best Finalists!

Updated on March 8, 2013 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

Congratulations to the following Riskies, for reaching the finals of Greater Detroit RWA’s Booksellers’ Best Award!

In the Regency category:

MY LADY GAMESTER, by Cara King
“a well-polished jewel of a book, with a gem of a hero” — Barbara Metzger

THE MYSTERIOUS MISS M, by Diane Perkins/Gaston
“Gaston’s strong, memorable debut provides new insights into the era and characters that touch your heart and draw you emotionally into her powerful story. — Kathe Robin, Romantic Times BOOKclub.

and in the Historical Romance category:

LADY MIDNIGHT, by Amanda McCabe
“Lady Midnight will enchant and enrapture readers with its great depth of character…a tantalizing plot with wonderful gothic overtones and a daring hero” — Kathe Robin, Romantic Times BOOKclub.Way to go, Riskies!!!!!!!!

Posted in Risky Book Talk | Tagged Lady Midnight, My Lady Gamester, The Mysterious Miss M | 8 Replies

ELENA WINS AGAIN! TWICE!!!

Updated on March 8, 2013 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

Anyone who’s read Elena Greene’s Signet Super Regency Lady Dearing’s Masquerade (and therefore knows how good it is) won’t be surprised to hear that it just won the Golden Quill Award for BEST HISTORICAL ROMANCE OF 2005!!! Way to go, Elena!!!!